What are the limits on freedom of speech? While a cherished right in the Constitution, it is not unbridled. Budding historians consider what checks should exist on this liberty using news stories, court cases, and College Board prompts.

Artists, musicians, and dramatists have long been the leaders in the quest for social justice. To gain an understanding of the power of the arts to address social issues, class members listen to a reading of Drew Daywalt's The Day the...

Why have organic farms increased while dairy farms have decreased? Learners unravel this and other questions about geography, religion, and urban living patterns in a set of assessment questions. The resource includes short-answer...

Gross domestic product can be a telling indicator about the health of a country, but it has limitations. Learners examine common indicators using structured prompts and problem sets from the College Board. Other practice problems include...

Currency exchange is a big factor in governments making economic decisions. Scholars consider various scenarios to evaluate how factors such as interest rates and private investments would affect a nation's economy using a practice test...

Robert Frost's "Choose Something Like a Star" and John Keats' "Bright Star" provide the text for a two-part instructional activity in which class members analyze the effects of style on meaning in poetry. Randall Thompson's song cycle...

An informative resource covers the event of John Brown's Raid, an event that became an important part of West Virginia history. It serves as a standalone and covers the event and John Brown's life in depth using group work, online...

Warsaw, Poland, suffered much of the blunt of World War II—but according to Polish letters from the early days of Nazi occupation, other parts of the country were much worse off. High schoolers use the letters and contemporaneous...

You are Winston Churchill, and on May 9th, 1945, you receive millions of grateful cards and telegrams. How do you respond? High schoolers put themselves in the Prime Minister's chair with an activity that prompts them to respond to a...

Because World War II encompassed most of the globe in one way or another, many pivotal battles and events are not as visible in the history books, leaving veterans of these conflicts feeling overlooked by more famous skirmishes. High...

Iwo Jima was the site of some of the most grim fighting in World War II. Learners consider this fact while examining primary sources, including letters home, from those on the front lines. After they complete the analysis, scholars then...

Everyone knows that the Declaration of Independence is important, but what does it actually say? Members of American history classes analyze the Founding Fathers' arguments against British tyranny and for a more perfect union with a...

What do Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" and the Book of Genesis have in common? Both are complex texts that model how authors can approach the same concept—betrayal—in very different ways.

Something wickedly wonderful this way comes in a lesson that focuses on Macbeth. After a close reading of the play, class members craft a literary analysis essay in which they use evidence from the text to show how Shakespeare uses the...

Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" provides middle schoolers with an opportunity to hone their close reading and literary analysis skills. After annotating their copy of the story, writer's craft an essay in which they analyze...

How can a gender theoretical lens shape the way Ophelia is perceived in Hamlet? That is the question writers must answer in an explanatory essay to conclude their study of Shakespeare's revenge tragedy.

Young scholars work with word cards to define and identify synonyms, antonyms, and homophones. Participants listen to instruction, read word cards, discuss their new-found knowledge, and put it into action by creating sentences and...

Dred Scott v. Sanford was a watershed moment for the country—and a key moment leading up to the Civil War. Using videos and analytical worksheets, scholars consider the facts of the case and then develop their own arguments before the...

Plan the way to school. Given a map of a school district, class members portray a transportation consultant hired to develop a bus transportation plan that will pick up the eligible riders and get them to school. The plan must contain...

Was Nat Turner a hero or a violent criminal? Using primary sources and images that discuss the rebellion of enslaved people he led in antebellum Virginia, scholars consider the question. Then, they create memorials to Turner and...

Humans have been on the move for millennia. Using an article from The Smithsonian, pupils chart human movement before written history on a world map. In addition, they examine the modes of transportation used by different waves of human...

Human migration—often the result of push and pull factors—sometimes has dramatic outcomes for both those leaving their homelands and the host countries. Using a variety of case studies, learners consider those issues. Then, by completing...

The Gulf War, the Vietnam War, and the Korean War all featured pivotal moments in United States foreign policy. Individuals consider how these conflicts changed the course of American diplomacy using an essay prompt and documents from a...

While the United States is now one of the strongest countries in the world, at its founding, it was plagued by controversies over the ratification of the Constitution, the Louisiana Purchase, and the expansion of slavery. Using a...